Touchstone's Editors and Allies on News and Events of the Day

July 03, 2006

Publishing Altizer's Nightmare

A book sent to me by the State University of New York Press caught my attention in a way I wish it hadn't. It's Living the Death of God: Theological Memoir by Thomas J. J. Altizer, with a foreward by Mark C. Taylor. The press notice accompanying the volume points out that 40 years ago, April 1966, Time magazine asked on its cover, "Is God Dead?" Altizer, "then a young faculty member at Emory University and a leading death-of-god theologian, was named in the issue as a primary author of the deity's obituary."

I looked into the volume to see what it could possibly say and came upon one creepy passage. He relates how he had "unexpectedly and totally failed" a psychiatric examination as a prerequisite for his canddiacy for the priesthood of the Episcopal Church. "I was seriously advised that I could expect to be in a psychiatric institution within a year." Failing the exam had been preceeded by "the most ultimate experience of my life, and one that I believe profoundly affected my vocation as a theologian, and even my theological work itself."

This occurred late a night, while I was in my room. I suddenly awoke and became truly possessed, and experienced an epiphany of Satan which I have never been able fully to deny, an experience in which I could actually feel Satan consuming me, absorbing me into his very being, as though this was the deepest possible initiation and bonding, and the deepest and yet most horrible union. Few who read me know of this experience, but it is not accidental that I am perhaps the only theologian who now writes of Satan, and can jokingly refer to myself as the world's leading satanologist; indeed, Satan and Christ soon became my primary theological motifs....

Well, with his new book, apparently people are now being informed about this experience. I wonder, had he told Time magazine about it, would they have reported it? (He doesn't date it in the book, but it occurred at least 12 years before the Time story, while at the University of Chicago, where he was a student from 1947 to 1954). It sounds like another instance of 1 Peter 5:8 to me. The book has a strong odor of sulfur about it and I won't be reading it.

7 Comments

Emory University (founded by Wesleyan Methodists) actually brags about Altizer:

"Founded by faithful Christians, the University gained a level of notoriety when one of Emory College’s professors published a scholarly work in 1965 that signaled the beginning of 'death-of-God' theology. A firestorm erupted in conservative church circles, but the trustees and the administration stood by Thomas Altizer’s academic freedom and earned the accolades of the American Association of University Professors as a result."

Interesting that we now know Satan is really in back of so much of the modern and liberal assaults on Traditional orthodox Christianity. It is also interesting seeing that "academic freedom" was corrupted in his case to give a "bully pulpit" in a religiously founded school to one who apparently can consider himself as having been -to use his words- absorbed, initiated, and bonded into Satan.
The same thing is going on in the Catholic Church today as corrupt theologians, scholars,and academics in league with secular besotted students rape the concept of "academic freedom" to undermine orthodox Catholicism on Catholic campuses while cowardly--or groveling--administrators (most recently at Notre Dame) try to make a virtue out of their treasonous complicity.

The orthodox/conservative/literalist theologians never seemed to grasp the full implications of Altizer's argument. Yes, the sulfur clings - it clings to you, too, and to me. Altizer's view is a deep acknowledgment of the darkness of the modern world. When you are in darkness, you have to see that it is darkness. What is the meaning of redemption without damnation? Doesn't the Christian believe that we are all damned, to be saved only via grace?

Longing for an authentic theology is better than settling for a false one. Altizer's theology charts the conflict between a theology of answers and certainties against a theology of authentic spiritual voyage. What I like most about Altizer's work is that he refuses to blind himself - he looks into the abyss and doesn't flinch. I find this more compelling than the will to blindness and lack of compassion that marks much of the religious world today. Ultimately, I think Altizer's vision is one of redemption - but one has to have a sense of the role of paradox.

In any case, this book is a memoir. These attacks miss the point of Altizer's experience as he has narrated it. To so easily judge an experience such as this - one that prompted a lifetime of spiritual questioning - seems to be at odds with the ancient message of Christianity.

Altizer needs to read (or re-read) Luke 10 to remind himself of how things really are:

17And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name.

18And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.

19Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.

20Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven.

21In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight.

22All things are delivered to me of my Father: and no man knoweth who the Son is, but the Father; and who the Father is, but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him.

It is clear that Douglas did what the blog author admitted: talked about something he didn't read. It is funny that one might charge this as evidence that Satan is behind modern theology--to the contrary, Altizer's theology is just as much as an assault on modern theology as it is to traditional theology. In fact, I think if evangelicals actually took the time to read Altizer they would find a common interest in thinking theologically and Biblically at the same time, for those evangelicals who are theological and Biblical.

A theologian writes about an experience in which he became painfully aware of the reality of Satan, and those who identify themselves as "traditional orthodox Christians" denounce him for it. I'm puzzled. I thought traditional orthodox Christians were the ones who believed in Satan? But then again, I'm one of those old-fashioned people who think that you should take the time to read somebody's book before criticising it in print, so I'm clearly behind the times.